Does our economy affect our careers?

When it comes to choosing careers in South Africa a lot of factors come into play. The opinion
of your parents, the subjects you chose in high school, what career is in demand in the country
and how much funding do you have to pursue a degree? Besides these issues, there is the fact
that you are required to figure out who you are and want to be at a young age when your mind
hasn’t reached full maturity. There’s a scare amongst young students that their high school
choices in subjects and marks will not get them to study their first choices. Hard work is
something that comes to play in these situations but little does a 17-year-old know that they
live in one of the biggest crime-ridden countries where almost nothing is as ethical as we expect
it to be. Racism is one of the issues holding us back, how another demographic will be favoured
over another because of the social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental situations
that influence the events or trends we see happening in South Africa.

The South African high school system is not equal throughout the country, township schools are
infiltrated by the Bantu education system which was set up to keep black students behind and
to limit them when it came to finding jobs or studying further. Of course, the schools in suburbs
have more resources to motivate the students and encourage them to further their studies
compared to 85% of the country’s schools which are poorly funded. What’s interesting is that
some of the most educated and smartest people in our country come from these poorly funded
schools and the reason for this is having an inspirational leader at their schools who believed in
the power of education and who were able to create a community of learning by holding
teachers accountable. Our biggest problem as a country when it comes to the education system
is the lack of literacy that our foundation phase faces which carries through into high school
because students are not taught to read to understand or for meaning. 81% of this country’s
population does not speak English as a home language and at school, they are being tested in a
secondary language, fortunately, in Eastern Cape, they pioneer teaching and testing in their
mother tongue, which is motivating for students.

South Africa is plagued by poverty so the option of going to university is not a luxury for
everyone. There are a million students who write matric exams annually and 150 000 students
pass at a standard which they can be accepted to study at university but there’s only space for
70 000. What happens to all the students who don’t go to university? Youth unemployment is
at its highest while there is a skill shortage in many sectors. I haven’t even mentioned the
government limitations and early childhood defects or that poverty, crime and other social
issues create a difficult environment for teachers to do their job and keep students motivated

to keep learning and chase after their dreams even if their environment gives them no hope
there could be a better tomorrow. But, the show must go on because there’s simply no other
option.

South Africa was already in the middle of a recession when the 2020 pandemic hit and to add
fuel to the fire, 18% of the population was already living in poverty. The pandemic resulted in
digging us into an even deeper hole when it came to food insecurity and job loss. Since then,
some things have drastically improved. With government subsidies, job acquisition has
experienced a shift. Graduates have been able to be part of the job market and have been
exploring ways of differentiating themselves from the rest by furthering their studies in fields
that are high in demand. These fields include Software development, agriculture, sales,
marketing, finance, engineering, and medicine. One would argue that these fields do limit us in
exploring who we truly are and what we want to be in the future if we follow what the statistics
tell us what we need to do to survive in this country. The younger generation has also
witnessed and has grown up in the rise of social media and has seen how much success people
have had by filming themselves or creating content which can be misleading because creating
the content takes a lot of money and takes a long time to eventually get paid enough to sustain
yourself. If it’s something that you’re passionate about and you’ve accepted that your journey
won’t look like the other person’s, I think it’s a career you should pursue on the side of your
profession.

In conclusion, we believe that you should prioritize your mental health and consult people
around you who care for you and are interested in your well-being when it comes to your
education and the career path you choose. We should keep in our mind that teachers deserve
as much appreciation as possible for what they’re able to do with the little resources that they
have to transform the minds of young students and inspire them to not limit themselves
whatever obstacles they may face. On our wish list would be for the department of education
to ensure school facilities and infrastructure are up to scratch, the unions to put the interests of
students first, schools to find a way to develop strong principals, and learners to get a proper
grasp of their home languages before moving onto English, and learners pursue new avenues of
progression from high school to workforce. There’s still a long way to go before we reach this
dream but it is not impossible, if we change our design and push towards a direction that is fair
for all we might be surprised at how much we’re capable of and might have a fighting chance to
reach our potential.

Share your comments below and lets have a conversation!!